Sunday, September 20, 2009
Parsing "a whole lot of" federal money
In a "meaning of 'is' is" moment, President Obama asks us to believe that he "didn't even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money." No doubt he also did not know that ACORN was getting a wad of moola, a tin of lucre, a dollop of dough, bread to come and go on, a whole lot of benjamins, or a goodly pile of legal tender. But he apparently did know -- we only know this because of his absurd parsing -- that the federal government was funding ACORN to some degree.
The president really needs to speak less legalistically in ordinary conversation, because people do not like people who sound like lawyers. Learn not thy lessons from Bill Clinton, Mr. President!
CWCID: Glenn Reynolds.
22 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Sep 20, 02:56:00 PM:
Hey, don't blame President Obama; he only speaks what he reads, words that some one else has written!
Now, think about ACORN. It has been around awhile, stealing elctions, working with inner city pols to steal what wasn't tied down and, more recently, blatantly partnering with local unions to do, well, the same thing.
ACORN had the old mafia to model. There have always been scams that used public money to fund crooked dealings. Think how many local politicians and political dynasties owe ACORN!
ACORN must have a disaster plan. They had to expect that some activity (dope? prostitution? fake mortgages?) would some day blow up. They have to have hidden assets and records. They must be able to morf into other structures and maintain revenue flows. Sure, they might lose some big government cash flows and may have some city pols jump on the band wagon against them. But, they have to have anticipated this and will simply execute plan B.
By 
Elijah, at
Sun Sep 20, 03:07:00 PM:
President Obama possesses nice oratory skills and rhetoric; what has he actually accomplished, where are the metrics?
By the way, where are those jobs that the stimulus bill were going to create?
By , at
Sun Sep 20, 03:44:00 PM:
When you get your news from the New York Times and MSNBC (that is, when you're not too engrossed in your critique of Kayne West at the MTV Music Awards), it cannot be too surprising that the President of the United is so ignorant of what's going on in the world today.
By , at
Sun Sep 20, 03:47:00 PM:
Didn't Obama attend an ACORN event and promise them that in an Obama administration they'd have a seat at the policy table?
And we're supposed to believe he doesn't know they get significant amounts of our money?
Hey Mr. President, you lie!
By , at
Sun Sep 20, 04:05:00 PM:
"By the way, where are those jobs that the stimulus bill were going to create?"
Ah, but Elijah... do you not recognize the benefit of saving all those jobs that were going to be lost were it not for the stimulus plan that saved them?
Neither you nor anyone else can prove the stimulus did otherwise. (That's the nice thing about requiring your opponent disprove a negative.)
By Anthony, at
Sun Sep 20, 04:15:00 PM:
My first thought matched Florida's - of course he didn't know, the NYT hasn't covered it.
As for "a whole lot", in Obama's world, everybody gets at least a little Federal money.
By , at
Sun Sep 20, 04:24:00 PM:
Hey, President Obama...
YOU LIE!
By , at
Sun Sep 20, 04:24:00 PM:
Obama gets a pass on knowing since he didn't read the budget before he signed it.
By Cap'n Rusty, at
Sun Sep 20, 04:30:00 PM:
Some village in Kenya is missing its idiot.
By Escort81, at
Sun Sep 20, 04:55:00 PM:
The non-response President Obama gave to Stephanopolous about whether he would agree that Acorn's federal funding should be cut off (the equivalent of asking him if he would sign a clean bill to that effect) was extremely bad political TV for his administration. If such a bill arrives at his desk -- and there is no assurance that it will -- it will be with a veto-proof supermajority, and it would be amazing for him not to sign it, and then be subject to an override by a Congress controlled by his own party.
While I would agree with Obama that Acorn might not be as important as Iran or AfPak or Iraq or a host of domestic issues, he ought to have been prepared to give a serious and on point response. For him to even create the impression that Acorn's funding might stay in place is a self-inflicted wound. Does he really believe that he can't win without them?
Also, I agree with the first Anon that the bad-player part of Acorn (assuming for the moment that there are actually a number of good folks trying to do decent things in tough communities) could well reconstitute under a different banner, kind of like a boiler room penny-stock trading operation. The fact that these guys can actually swing close local elections makes them particularly dangerous, and at least important enough for the President to deal with in an interview.
It's a shame, because there are good Community Development Corporations out there in public/private partnerships doing good work -- the late Jim Rouse's Enterprise Development Corporation(based near Baltimore) comes to mind. Acorn is a different kind of animal, and we need to focus on those entities that engaged in bad behavior.
By , at
Sun Sep 20, 05:28:00 PM:
Hey, give the guy a break, he was too busy watching the VMA's
By , at
Sun Sep 20, 05:51:00 PM:
Okay, so our great leader was unaware that ACORN had received lots of Federal dollars? That's entirely possible since he sat in the pews every Sunday and was UNAWARE that Rev. Wright was spewing anti-American and racist rhetoric. He was unaware Van Jones was a bitter racist "truther". I am sure there are lots of inconvenient things he is unaware of.
Seems a little odd just how aware Obama was when his old friend Professor Gates mouthed off to the cop and was arrested. He formed a quick opinion on the "stupid" act of the cop. He evidently had time to tune in to MTV to see Kanye West be a "jackass".
Very interesting that he missed the fact that our government has been sending money to his friends at ACORN???? Hardly.
By , at
Sun Sep 20, 05:57:00 PM:
So what we have here is another question that is above his paygrade.
By Fen, at
Sun Sep 20, 06:14:00 PM:
OBAMA: "You know, if -- frankly, it's not really something I've followed closely. I didn't even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money."
Liar!
By , at
Sun Sep 20, 07:21:00 PM:
panty-waste men will destroy this country. POTUS B.H.O. fits the bill perfectly.
By , at
Sun Sep 20, 08:04:00 PM:
"[Obama] didn't even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money."
In a related story, President Obama admitted some other things he wasn't aware of:
"Gee willikers, you mean to tell me that the earth revolves around the sun? Dang, nobody told me about that when I was at Columbia. And, whoa, I didn't know Jim Morrison of the Doors was dead. Damn shame, 'cause I have ALL of their albums! Now that you mention it, I was wondering why Morrison hadn't put out anything new for while."
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Sun Sep 20, 09:26:00 PM:
Presumably, following House and Senate votes would be among the most basic duties of a president, nu?
By Diogenes, at
Sun Sep 20, 10:12:00 PM:
BHO proves that Constitutional law professors make terrible trial lawyers.
Virtually everything he says is either an inherent contradiction or provably false.
A trial court judge who knows the law would not tolerate Obama's word parsing, e.g., the 14th amendment would preclude denial of medical care to illegals if a government option were employed.
Second, a jury would deny Obama relief because they know the facts of the pending versions of medical care/insurance reform.
By , at
Sun Sep 20, 11:34:00 PM:
Even if ACORN gets defunded, so what? It has hundreds of subsidiaries, so unless the bill is very carefully drafted ACORN won't even have to dismantle itself. Even if the bill is carefully drafted, again so what? They transfer the leadership and employees to a new non-profit and continue their criminal activities as before.
By Georg Felis, at
Mon Sep 21, 12:19:00 AM:
Well, if the man was unaware of a million people with signs camping out on his front lawn, then being unaware of the money his administration was funneling to a group he has done considerable work with over the years is possible.
And flying monkeys will come out of my....
By , at
Mon Sep 21, 08:12:00 AM:
"Some village in Kenya is missing its idiot."
Birther humor! Love it.
By John, at
Mon Sep 21, 11:14:00 AM:
"ACORN? It's just some organization that lived in my neighborhood."
